Problem exporting animations via .dsq
by Chris McKillip · in Artist Corner · 07/21/2010 (6:19 pm) · 4 replies
Hi all,
We've been trying to change our pipeline to move from embedding animations within .dts files to having them in their own separate .dsq files. Now, when we export our main character from Houdini and embed the animations within the .dts file, everything works wonderfully. However, if we split out the animations into .dsq files, weird things start to happen. The animations load and everything in T3D, but it looks like some nodes are referencing the wrong set of transformations or something. So for instance some bones in the left arm will be where the right arm is supposed to be, and the corresponding right arm bones just stay in the bind pose. It's the same bones for each animation sequence.
Now, the weird thing is that the animations work fine in ShowTool. We can load up the model, add the animations, and everything is as expected. I read in the documentation that there are newer versions of the .dsq format and that ShowTool still uses an older one, so is the problem with the exporter and ShowTool not working with the latest file format? And if that's the case, is there a way to modify the files that the exporter generates to work for the new format?
Any help/suggestions would be great. Thanks!
We've been trying to change our pipeline to move from embedding animations within .dts files to having them in their own separate .dsq files. Now, when we export our main character from Houdini and embed the animations within the .dts file, everything works wonderfully. However, if we split out the animations into .dsq files, weird things start to happen. The animations load and everything in T3D, but it looks like some nodes are referencing the wrong set of transformations or something. So for instance some bones in the left arm will be where the right arm is supposed to be, and the corresponding right arm bones just stay in the bind pose. It's the same bones for each animation sequence.
Now, the weird thing is that the animations work fine in ShowTool. We can load up the model, add the animations, and everything is as expected. I read in the documentation that there are newer versions of the .dsq format and that ShowTool still uses an older one, so is the problem with the exporter and ShowTool not working with the latest file format? And if that's the case, is there a way to modify the files that the exporter generates to work for the new format?
Any help/suggestions would be great. Thanks!
About the author
#2
We will get this cleaned up and post back if it fixes the problem or if there is still an issue that may need further troubleshooting.
07/22/2010 (7:55 pm)
Thanks for the post. We realized that the hand and finger bones do not have right left designations. This could be responsible for the mix up in Torque. Still don't know why it works in ShowTool though.We will get this cleaned up and post back if it fixes the problem or if there is still an issue that may need further troubleshooting.
#3
07/22/2010 (10:06 pm)
I don't know exactly how ShowTool works, but it's possible that it doesn't do any node remapping and just relies on the bones being in the same order in both the DTS and DSQ.
#4
@Chris. Thanks for the help. We were using Houdini's auto rigging tool and allowed it to name the bones. The tool does not designate right and left naming of bones and we had simply overlooked the naming issue.
Note to those who may run into this issue in the future. Make sure your bones are correctly named (right and left.) DSQ's need uniquely named nodes.
08/13/2010 (8:49 pm)
Well renaming the bones fixed the problems. It seemed that the DSQ was confusing the bones in each arm and each leg and mapping them to the same motion.@Chris. Thanks for the help. We were using Houdini's auto rigging tool and allowed it to name the bones. The tool does not designate right and left naming of bones and we had simply overlooked the naming issue.
Note to those who may run into this issue in the future. Make sure your bones are correctly named (right and left.) DSQ's need uniquely named nodes.
Associate Chris Robertson
Is there anything odd/interesting about the names of your bones? T3D uses the bone names to map bone indices in the DSQ file to bone indices in the DTS file. Are there any warnings/errors when you load the model+animations in T3D?